Halo is favorite gaming franchise. While I love the games multi-player the element of the game that initially sold me is the fiction. Funny thing though about the fiction - even after playing the first two games of the franchise, I could not have told you a single thing about the games story. The narrative of the first two games was so confusing, I basically stopped paying attention not far into Halo: CE. I played the Halo games because they were fun, but generally I didn't care one bit about the story or the broader Halo universe.
That changed during the lead up to Halo 3... in a big way. While perusing the internet, I stumbled on a website/blog that was dedicated to all things Halo. The author of the blog had compiled the cutscenes from Halo 1 and 2 and provided an analysis of what was going on. He also had posts that recapped the broader universe as depicted in the first few Halo novels. As I read through his blog posts I realized just how rich and deep the Halo universe is. I also realized how extraordinarily bad the Halo games were at conveying the depth and richness of that universe.
That is a shame. I'm hoping 343 Industries is better, but in reality the universe is sooo deep that I understand how hard it must be to fit in the narrative around the structure of a game.
To me Halo is to gaming what "Lost" was to television. Like Lost it is filled with mysteries and unexplained events. Like lost, it is wonderfully frustrating how just when you think you understand whats going on, something is revealed that makes you question everything. And just like Lost a good portion of the fun of being a Halo fan is wondering "what the hell is going on"
Unfortunately without a broader context of the universe, a casual Halo fan will never get to enjoy that mystery. It would be like watching a single episode of Lost half-way through the 3rd season, being completely lost as to what is going on, and wondering what all the fuss is about. I want more people to enjoy Halos fiction the way the thousands of passionate fans do. But to do that one would have to be willing to dig into the expanded universe made up by the novels and movies. For most players that is unlikely.
So, to help bring more people along for the ride that is Halo, I decided to do a series of posts that provide brief (but sufficiently detailed) breakdowns of key aspects of the Halo universe. The goal is to provide some background and context that allows players not versed in the extended universe to better understand what happened in Halo:CE through Halo 3, and more importantly explain some of the events that lead up to Halo 4.
The first Post will go live next Monday and will start with an explanation of what exactly the Halo are (may seem obvious, but its not), what they are used for and where did they come from. Following that I will release one post every Monday leading right up to the launch of Halo 4.
Though I will have done my research for each post, I should be clear my posts may well contain information that is incomplete or even inaccurate. If one aspect of the game interests you check out A halo wikipedia for more detailed information of each topic. Check back on Monday for my first entry.
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